Time to put NIMBYism on the ash heap of history
Decades of pandering to NIMBYism created Aotearoa's housing crisis. It's beyond time we put this costly concept on the ash heap of history.
“Can’t intensify in Paekākāriki because it’ll ruin our village vibe!”
“Can’t intensify in Waikanae because then we can’t enjoy our sprawling private gardens behind our towering fences!”
“Can’t intensify in Te Horo, Peka Peka, or Otaihanga because it’ll wreck the feel of our lifestyle blocks!”
“Can’t intensify in Paraparaumu, Paraparaumu Beach, Raumati, or Raumati South because of transport infrastructure!”
“Can’t intensify in Ōtaki because it’ll change our small town!”
“Can’t intensify at Waikanae Beach because we want it to preserve all the old holiday baches!”
“Can’t intensify in Kāpiti because there’s plenty of spare land around.”
So the cycle of greenfield sprawl continues. A cycle which fuels car dependent lifestyles, leads to worse environmental outcomes, costs families more in increased housing and living costs, and reduces physical and mental wellbeing through less time for recreation, family time, and social activities thanks to greater commuting distances and less discretionary income.
Few things annoy me more than NIMBYs, especially those who claim to be progressives but gleefully embrace NIMBYism despite the higher economic, environmental, and social costs of NIMBYism - costs that are all paid by the most vulnerable in our society.
There’s been decades of evidence around the world clearly demonstrating that greenfield sprawl costs more and is worse for the wellbeing of both the environment and people than intensifying existing urban footprints. In New Zealand’s particular experience, the Infrastructure Commission specifically took aim at how pandering to NIMBYs in urban planning policies created Aotearoa’s housing crisis.
I was one of only a handful of councillors during my triennium on Kāpiti Coast District Council who wholeheartedly welcomed the (briefly) bipartisan approach from central government that saw most urban councils need to implement a National Policy Statement on Urban Development (NPS-UD) and Medium Density Residential Standards (MDRS) that were to be transformative for housing supply and would likely lead to the types of improvements in housing supply and affordability that Auckland saw following the introduction of its far more permissive unitary plan.
As we were voting to progress implementing the changes to our district plan required by the NPS-UD and MDRS, we heard all the usual NIMBY talking points about why every community in the district couldn’t have more housing in their area.
I get that change can be difficult for some people, but you know what was more difficult? Seeing the most vulnerable people in Kāpiti forced out of the district because of unaffordable housing. Seeing people put under more and more financial stress because of rapidly escalating housing costs.
When I was on Kāpiti Coast District Council we also received this confronting housing needs assessment, that starkly painted out the huge financial, social, mental, and physical costs of the housing crisis on Kāpiti. Unaffordable housing costs were seeing everyone from pensioners, service workers, and even teachers and healthcare staff forced out of the district because of the skyrocketing cost of housing. It was heartbreaking to read.
However, I’ve been watching in what I can only describe as disgust (and sometimes amusement) as groups such as the pompously named “Waikanae Garden Precinct Protection Society” line up to try and scaremonger their way to try and undo the hard fought progress that was set to finally free up housing supply after decades of constraint that’s seen New Zealand end up with some of the least affordable housing in the OECD.
Never mind that most of the gardens of the former garden precinct are located on sprawling sections, locked behind high fences, and are made up overwhelming of exotic and not native trees.
Never mind that the native trees the fear merchants claim will be bowled are already protected.
Never mind that most of the former garden precinct is located in walking distance of amenities such as commuter rail, a library, several large parks, a summer swimming pool, a school, and a shopping village, making it ideal for intensification.
Never mind that the aforementioned shopping village has been declining over several decades and could badly use the increased foot traffic from more people living nearby.
Never mind that more people living in the area will strengthen the business case for things like additional schools and healthcare facilities like people keep calling for.
Never mind that the residents of the former garden precinct who constantly complain about rates might find that their share of the district’s rates take would comparatively decrease if there were more residents living in the existing urban footprint given the lower cost to service them with infrastructure.
Never mind that one of the prominent residents of the former garden precinct who’s trying to reinstate it is himself a developer who’s latest development elsewhere in Kāpiti is being opposed by locals for similar reasons to why he’s opposing intensification in Waikanae.
Of course, none of this is unique to Kāpiti. We see this same NIMBY nonsense play out again and again all over the country.
You would think that after decades of pandering to these regressive NIMBYs, and in doing so creating one of the most least affordable housing markets in the world, we would have learnt our lesson. For a brief moment with the NPS-UD and MDRS it seemed like we had.
However the more things change, the more they stay the same.
Just as I asked those who opposed the NPS-UD and MDRS when I was on Kāpiti Coast District Council, if we persist with the same NIMBY-appeasing planning policies that demonstrably created our housing crisis in the first place, then where do they expect our children and grandchildren to live? Where should our teachers and aged-care workers live? Where should our retail and hospitality workers live? Because if we persist with policies that produced runaway housing costs, then how on earth are the people who make our community what it is meant to live here? Isn’t Kāpiti meant to be a community for everyone, and not just the most financially privileged?
Thanks to the gradual extension of commuter rail and the recent huge investments in Transmission Gully and the Kāpiti Expressway, the previous transport infrastructure bottlenecks that gave people pause before moving to Kāpiti are long gone. If we don’t accommodate people who want to move here by intensifying in our existing housing footprints, we’ll end up being an endless sea of urban sprawl from Raumati to Ōtaki. What’s more, that urban sprawl will result in higher rates, more traffic, greater housing costs, and a lower quality of life overall than had we intensified largely within our existing communities.
NIMBYism has been one of the single most destructive policy forces in Aotearoa for nearly four decades, causing growing economic and social dislocation all while contributing to comparatively worse environmental outcomes than needed to be the case.
It’s time we put NIMBYism on the ash heap of history where it belongs.